tub with a tired sigh and wiping the sweat from her forehead
with a red, steamy hand; "but it makes me sad. I want to cry. There is
too many sad things in the world anyway. It makes me happy to think
about happy things. Now if he'd married her, and--You don't mind, Mart?"
she queried apprehensively. "I just happen to feel that way, because I'm
tired, I guess. But the story was grand just the same, perfectly grand.
Where are you goin' to sell it?"

"That's a horse of another color," he laughed.

"But if you _did_ sell it, what do you think you'd get for it?"

"Oh, a hundred dollars. That would be the least, the way prices go."

"My! I do hope you'll sell it!"

"Easy money, eh?" Then he added proudly: "I wrote it in two days. That's
fifty dollars a day."

He longed to read his stories to Ruth, but did not dare. He would wait
till some were published, he decided, then she would understand what he
had been working for. In the meantime he toiled on. Never had the
spirit of adventure lured him more strongly than on this amazing
exploration of the realm of mind. He bought the text-books on physics
and chemistry, and, along with his algebra, worked out problems and
demonstrations. He took the laboratory proofs on faith, and his intense
power of vision enabled him to see the reactions of chemicals more
understandingly than the average student saw them in the laboratory.
Martin wandered on through the heavy pages, overwhelmed by the clews he
was getting to the nature of things. He had accepted the world as the
world, but now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and
interplay of force and matter. Spontaneous explanations of old matters
were continually arising in his mind. Levers and purchases fascinated
him, and his mind roved backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at
sea. The theory of navigation, which enabled the ships to travel
unerringly their courses over the pathless ocean, was made clear to him.
The mysteries of storm, and rain, and tide were revealed, and the reason
for the existence of trade-winds made him wonder whether he had written
his article on the northeast trade too soon. At any rate he knew he
could write it better now. One afternoon he went out with Arthur to the
University of California, and, with bated breath and a feeling of
religious awe, went through the laboratories, saw demonstrations, and
listened to a physics professor lecturing to his classes.

But